Cyber world is turning social. I talk about the tools and technologies used by this social world.

Tuesday, November 6, 2007

Dowsing, The Paranormal Witching

My exploration to western books is continuing. Recently I started a book on Dowsing, the psychic ability to find water, gemstones, metals or other objects. This is nothing new in Indology and Indology has well developed process for this. The difference from Western dowsing and Indian dowsing is the reliance on the psychic abilities and intuitions. Indology has defined it in more detail and supported it with some other branches of Indology. Also all such topics converge to each other. Whereas in western world all such psychic branches are independent to each other. Also normally we have some detailed process involved to develop these psychic abilities, but in Western world, they have just-do-it kind of approach. Around ten years back, unknowingly, I tried few of dowsing methods and found that the objects were responding to my queries. I remember how the crystal was moving just by the directions of my mind. Though I believe, at that initial level, these were my more my bodily response to my queries rather than any divine response.

Anyways, here is how wikipedia defines dowsing -

Dowsing, sometimes called divining or water witching, refers to practices in which people claim to detect hidden water, metals, gemstones or other objects, usually obstructed by land or sometimes located on a map. Most commonly, the movement or vibrations of apparatus, such as a Y-shaped twig, an L-shaped rod or a pendulum, is used. Some practitioners use no apparatus at all.

Dowsing is considered pseudoscience by the scientific community while Practitioners say their powers are paranormal. Research intended to prove its efficacy has failed to do so, but some people believe that it works, and it is widely practiced in its various forms.The detailed wikipedia article can be found here.